Water panel adopts guidelines for delta fixes

LOS ANGELES - A committee of regional water leaders Monday said
the state needs to build some sort of canal to separate endangered
fish and environmental concerns from Southern California's
now-threatened water supplies.

Members of the Water Planning and Stewardship Committee of the
Metropolitan Water District - Southern California's main water
provider - voted to adopt a set of guidelines to "fix" Northern
California's fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta.

The committee's vote is expected to be endorsed by the agency's
full board today.

Metropolitan would then use the guidelines to lobby Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, which is
trying to come up with plans to fix the Bay Delta to protect fish
and keep life-sustaining water flowing from Northern California to
the rest of the state.

Water officials around the state are still reeling from a court
decision nearly two weeks ago that would limit pumping from the Bay
Delta beginning Dec. 25 to save an endangered fish, the delta
smelt. The delta is the heart of the massive State Water Project, a
600 mile series of dams, reservoirs, pipelines and pumping
stations.

Officials from Metropolitan - which serves nearly 18 million
Southern Californians in six counties, including San Diego County -
say the decision could cut the region's water supplies by 30
percent in 2008.

Meanwhile, some solutions to fix the Bay Delta would not build
canals around it, but leave it pretty much as it is now.

Metropolitan General Manager Jeff Kightlinger said those plans
might appease environmental groups and farmers with land in the Bay
Delta, but they would also leave Southern California's water
supplies at risk.

He said the guidelines the committee approved Monday would
provide Metropolitan's platform to lobby state officials.

"We have a tremendous amount invested in the delta and the State
Water Project," Kightlinger said. "So when we see we're going to
lose up to maybe 30 percent of the water we've paid for and we must
continue to pay for by contract until 2035 we're certainly going to
urge the state to do everything possible to make the delta a more
reliable place for water supply deliveries."

Metropolitan has bought more water and paid more money into the
State Water Project than any other agency.

On Monday, Metropolitan committee members were told that the
governor's task force and an advisory group of water agencies,
environmental and farming groups, and others were considering four
possible ways to fix the Bay Delta:

Leaving the delta pretty much alone, except to fortify the
walls of hundreds of man-made levees in the delta that could
crumble and cut off water supplies in an earthquake or other
disaster. Metropolitan officials said that could cost $10
million.

Creating an "eco-corridor" through the Bay Delta to keep
endangered fish away from pumping plants by building up spawning
habitat in other areas - which could cost $100 million if it were
made permanent.

Building a canal all around the Bay Delta - like the
"peripheral canal" that voters shot down in 1982 - that could cost
between $3 billion to $4 billion.

Building a smaller canal around part of the Bay Delta, in
combination with the permanent eco-corridor, that could cost $4
billion to $5 billion.

But Kightlinger said only the latter two alternatives would work
for water agencies seeking to protect regional water supplies.

Kightlinger said environmental groups and farmers - who would
gain from having levees around their lands fortified - like the
first two options.

But neither of those, he said, would prevent potential problems
with endangered fish such as the tiny smelt or salmon from
fisheries being killed by the pumps that send water from the Bay
Delta south.